all year
i have carried remnants
old names
old fears
rooms inside me
i kept shuttered
dust thick on the windowsills

i used to love how the dark didn't ask
how it let me arrive unlit
unseen
unaccounted for

but today
the sun finds everything
reaches beneath the floorboards
slips through keyholes
lays warm hands on the corners
i thought could stay hidden forever

even the grief glows
even the places
still healing
turn their faces upward

i stand in the longest day
and let it happen
the shadows remain
but smaller now
held in proportion
by something brighter

and for one impossible afternoon
there is nowhere in me
the sun does not reach

every memory
every quiet ache
lit from within

as if my whole body
has been waiting
for this exact angle
of the earth
for this exact abundance
of light